A few weeks ago, my 14 year-old daughter Abi and I attended a LifeinLA event in Santa Monica. We experienced the Paranoia Haunted Attraction, a series of 3 ghoul-infested mazes promising to scare the socks off of anyone who would dare enter.
I purposely invited Abi so that I could see the event from the perspective of a teenager. It ended up being a wildly fun evening for the both of us! So that our readers could hear her take on the event, Abi has agreed to an interview:
Wings Like Eagles: So Abi, was the Paranoia Haunted Attraction your first experience with a scary Halloween event manned by professional actors?
Abi: No, I'd gone to Six Flags' Fright Fest before.
WLE: How did that compare to the Paranoia Haunted Attraction?
Abi: Well, when I went to Six Flags Fright Fest I was young, so I was scared. But, if I went now, it wouldn't be as scary to me. Paranoia was very scary. They were having fun with everything, and they tried new things--like, they did different things to scare people. They didn't do just the same things, you know?
WLE: Elaborate. What do you mean when you say that they did new things?
Abi: The first guy we came to, when we walked down the hallway with strobe lights, he came down doing this weird twitching-type thing, and when we stayed behind our group so that we could watch them scare other people, he crawled and did something different to scare each group. (Editor's Note: This was a Media Night event, so as a member of the Media, I went through with my tablet, and I interviewed the "monsters." We were invited to stay behind and watch them freak out other people--something they wouldn't normally encourage, or even allow.)
WLE: Awesome. I am happy that you were given the opportunity to see things from the creators' perspective. Did it take away from you being freaked out yourself?
Abi: No! I think they made it more scary for Media Night, so that they could give us a good show. Well, whenever we would come around a corner, I would peek instead of just walking in because they would jump out, or come behind us. We had to look everywhere we were walking. There was no Safe Zone!
WLE: Safe Zone. You're using the language of someone used to these types of places! Are you sure Paranoia was only your second experience at being in a professionally created haunted event?
Abi: Yes, but after we went to Paranoia, I went to Knott's Scary Farm with my friend.
WLE: Ahhh! That's right! How did Paranoia compare to Knott's Scary Farm? They are one of the original venues in Southern California to offer events like this at Halloween.
Abi: (Laughs) Well, in my opinion, Knott's Scary Farm wasn't as scary as I expected. After going to Paranoia nothing really freaked me out as much as Paranoia did. At Knott's Scary Farm it felt like they weren't really having fun with it. There weren't a lot of scary monsters, there were a lot of Safe Zones, and the mazes were really short and fast. They didn't try that hard to make it scary.
WLE: Wow. And you were really thinking that Knott's would be as fun as Paranoia, but on a bigger scale, right?
Abi. Yes, I did think it would be much more scary than Paranoia because my older siblings have been there before me a few years ago, and said it was very scary. So, I was expecting more of it and I was very shocked at how it just wasn't that scary at all. Especially compared to Paranoia.
WLE: Right, but Paranoia is in a warehouse, and not a giant amusement park. I would think that the amusement park would be bigger, more grand, and much more scary because of their bigger budget.
Abi: Yah, you would think, but the costumes at Paranoia were better, the lighting was way better, and they worked harder int he space they had. It was soooooo much more worth it.
At Paranoia, a monster chased girls outside the building, and into the mall! The monsters were scaring people badly, and making them run. At Knott's, I didn't see that hardly at all, really. It just seemed like the monsters at Knott's were too lazy to chase the people. They would just go to someone else.
And the monsters at Knott's are rude, when you think about it. They actually make fun of you. They made fun of my friend and me when we walked in. They made fun of how we looked. There is nothing scary about being humiliated. Because other people around them started laughing at us. I told them that it was rude, but they kept going.
WLE: Wow. That's shocking.
Abi: Yes, it's very shocking, actually. You wouldn't think that workers there would be making fun of you. But, at Paranoia I felt like they were into making my night fun, instead of making it embarrassing.
WLE: OK. So, Six Flags Fright Fest, Paranoia Haunted Attraction, or Knott's Scary Farm? Who has your vote?
Abi: If they were competing against each other, I would easily choose Paranoia. I wish I could go back!
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